


Into the Lions Den

by eak_a_mouse



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:56:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eak_a_mouse/pseuds/eak_a_mouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between India and the meet up in Seattle, Ethan's team quietly breaks him out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Lions Den

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adariall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adariall/gifts).



When the dust settles, Ethan goes with the Russians. It’s not custody exactly, but he’s not quite free to go either. His Russian police friend, Sidorov, is both upset at being manipulated and competent enough to follow him. It would still be easy enough to disappear, but someone needs to explain what happened in the Kremlin and what came so close to happening. 

Maybe they’ll enforce better mental health evaluations of their nuclear war strategists. 

Ethan goes with them and figures the team will see themselves home. 

In the meantime, he’ll deny almost everything. Without pausing for regret, he crushes his ear piece under his heel. 

And then he is alone. 

__

The team hears everything. Benji's fixing the mainframe, Brandt's wiping prints, and Jane's making a sling and a makeshift bandage when they catch the end of a Russian accented conversation. There's a moment of silence between the three of them when there's that brief moment of static that means a comm's down, but the comm network adjusts and so do they. 

They're still in the cold, no matter what the Russian may say. 

And there are procedures in place for a reason. 

They run through the steps that keep them invisible. New clothes that could blend in anywhere, a new car that could do the same, and they are back at the hideout with no one the wiser. 

It's when the bags are packed and the place had been swept twice that the regulations that had been guiding their every step stopped. Here was the place that paths divide. 

"So the way I see it," Benji starts. "IMF is still gone. And a fat lot of good it will do us to go back to base when base is already compromised."

"We could help rebuild IMF and debrief our government," Jane replies. 

“Or we could follow our team leader into the lion’s den,” Brandt suggests dryly. Jane and Benji both look at him with varying expressions of surprise. “What? I’m just saying what everyone is thinking.” 

With one last look at the once clean nosed analyst, Benji turns pleadingly to Jane. “Haven’t we broken him out of enough prisons already? This is just-” Benji looks like he doesn’t quite know how to fill in that blank.  
“Just protecting our investment?” Jane fills in. She has the smile she only wears when there’s a mission.

“Something like that,” Benji agrees, a smile unfurling across his own face. 

___

Which is how they end up in the belly of a dodgy plane on their way to Moscow, courtesy of Ethan’s contacts.

(“I thought he covered his tracks,” Brandt commented mildly.

“So did he,” Benji responded unthinkingly. At Brandt’s exasperated expression, he added, “He could have been getting himself kidnapped!” 

When Brandt still looks unconvinced, Benji adds, “He did get himself kidnapped!”)

Thankfully the dodgy plane, which smells suspiciously of vodka, and the dodgier pilot who smelled like he bathed in the stuff is perfectly fine with filing a false flight plan, and arranging to follow the (far nicer) plane carrying one Ethan Hunt as far as necessary.

It’s always amazing how far money will take you, beyond governments and borders, all if only slipped into the right hand. 

The plane successfully lands at a more private and more overgrown airstrip. It’s not too far from the private airbase the plane they had been monitoring was planning on landing, before completing the rest of the trip by car. All is going according to plan, right up until armed gunmen surround the opened hatch where the team is disembarking.

“I don’t remember this being part of the plan,” Brandt murmurs, voice pitched to only reached his teammates, one hand sliding to his holstered weapon. 

“Is part of plan now,” the pilot answers, poking the back of Brandt’s head hard with the tip of his pistol.

Brandt slowly raises his arms in response. Below him, Benji and Jane raise their hands reluctantly. Benji is wide eyed, but Jane just looks frustrated. 

Without shifting his aim, the pilot displays his badge: Pogranichnyie Voiska Rossii, Border Guard Service of Russia. 

“I am believing a Mr. Anatoly Sidorov will be wanting to speak with you.”

____

Ethan Hunt has been wined and dined and followed very closely to the bathroom for the past three days. 

He had explained the first time the entirety of events minus the mission in the Kremlin, the entire IMF, the truth of the secretary's presence in Russia, his teammates’ names and any identifying features, the mode of his release from prison, and any tech currently beyond what was available on the free market.

He will admit the story as he told it was little more than bare bones. And also completely impossible to independently verify. There were no witnesses to certain key elements of the timeline and little evidence to support the interlinking intuitive ideas that led him to chase Kendricks across two continents. There would be no government intervention. 

There is just him.

In a room.

With three guards who had all heard the story of how Sidorov had gotten his nose broken. Sidorov is currently missing, but there were too few weapons available, too much space between him and the nearest guard, and too many guns. 

And then the phone rings.

The guard ponderously pulls out his cell phone to answer the call.

From where he’s sitting, Ethan can’t hear any of the other side of the conversation.

Finally, the guard nods and holds out the phone to Ethan. 

“Your friends have come for you,” the guard says in a strongly accented voice and then he smiles.

Ethan thinks he’s going to kill his team.

___

It was strange. 

They knew Sidorov, which means, they knew Ethan, which means they should know the team. 

Only they were treating the three of them like standard criminals. A brusque pat down that Brandt knew found only the gun on his belt holster and none of his picks or knives. He suspected Benji had more tech and Jane had more weapons.

It was... incompetent might be the right word. Rushed might be another. 

As he begins to recognize the road they were on, Brandt starts getting an inkling of an idea.

They'd been pulled into separate cars. Bumping around in the back of an SUV, it was easy enough for him to slip his cuffs. He'd just have to hope his teammates were as successful. 

___

 

They were all three dragged out of their separate cars at the same time. As the drivers pulled away they were left with five guards around them. 

Brandt figures one for each of them and two extras. A quick succession of hand signs and the plan was in place. Okay, Jane was on board. Benji looked confused. 

At Jane's nod, they take down the guards quietly, quickly. One down with a leg sweep and kept down with a quick rabbit punch. The other one in front drops with a sleeper hold. Laying the last of his assigned guards gently on the ground, Brandt meets Jane's eyes. Both her men are down. 

"A little help here guys!” Benji wheezes from the side of the hallway where he pinned the guard with his still bound shoulder. Jane finishes the guard with a roundhouse kick, as Brandt unlocks Benji’s cuffs. 

“So what’s the plan?” Benji asks brightly, while rubbing at his newly freed wrists. He looks back and forth between the two agents. “There is a plan, right?”

Brandt nods. “The plan is to see a man about a favor. This is basically the Federal Security Service, and someone owes us. Bobcat,” Jane grins at her call sign, a grin with too many teeth, and Brandt can see where she gets the name. “I need you to divert security. Benji, your our eyes, hack their cameras, give us something to see.”

“Better yet something to hear.” Magically it seemed, Benji pulled out three comms. 

“Thanks, babe,” Brandt says, smacking a quick kiss to Benji’s cheek and grabbing his earpiece. 

Benji flushes deep red, his mouth hanging open just a bit, and Brandt can’t help but imagine how much further that blush goes. Benji seems stuck in place and Brandt bounces on his toes nervously. It’d been something he’d been wanting to do, but maybe Benji doesn’t feel the same. Or maybe Benji’d think there are boundaries during a mission. Only before he gets any further into the tangled thoughts in his mind, Benji grabbed his face for a kiss, pushing him back to the opposite wall. 

The kiss is something rushed, something imperfect. The clash of lips and tongues is sloppy and somehow better than he’d ever imagined it would be. They only separate when they have to breathe.

Benji pushes him away close enough to search his face. Brandt’s not sure what he’s looking for, but he's pretty sure he couldn’t hide anything right now to save his life. “When we’re back in the States?”

Brandt’s pretty sure his smile is taking up most of his face, like his smile could light up the toom by itself. “When we’re back in the States, I’ll take you to dinner.”

 

“If you two are done,” Jane says, and her smile this time is one of happiness. She grabs her own earpiece from Benji’s palm. One more nod to Brandt and she spins a pair of knives idly before heading down the hallway into the main building. Benji seems to be tracing a path to the server room. He waves vaguely as Brandt runs past, already mumbling to himself. 

___

In the chaos caused by the “crazy knife-wielding сука” as one agent yelled while trying to track Jane’s progress, Brandt slips quietly by. 

The man he’s looking for is hidden away. Not in the spotlight, but the hand behind the puppet is what he’s searching for. 

When he finds him, it’s almost disappointing. A man with a shock of white-blond hair, that somehow still seems like nothing. A scrap of a man, that no one would ever take notice of. And that’s how Brandt knows who he is. 

“You’re Max’s man,” Brandt says, not wasting any time. He wants to go home. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the no one man says without looking up from his computer screen. But, Brandt can see the glint of his eyes. 

“You’re Max’s man, because she and her people have a finger in all the pies,” Brandt says low and unhurried. “And Max has a certain fondness for a certain Ethan Hunt, who is currently being held illegally by your government.”

"I don't know what you're talking about," the man says again, only he's turned fully to face Brandt. Brandt knows he has him. 

"Ethan Hunt will be released tonight,” Brandt say leaning in. 

"Or what?"

"Or I will take out every one of Max's friends in my country."

Brandt can feel the eyes searching for any of his weaknesses, and somehow, even here, with a deadly spy game in play, kissing Benji was harder. 

“Understood.”

____

On the phone, Ethan hears the unmistakable voice of the woman he has only seen in the shadows. 

“It would seem, Ethan, that your usefulness to your countrymen exceed my willingness to let your rot for your mistakes.”

“Mistakes,” Ethan repeats dryly. 

“I would hardly call this a success, Agent Hunt.” 

“Good luck with your government; you will be sent on a plane tomorrow. I fiercely hope to never see from you again.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Ethan manages to slip into the conversation before the call ends with a click. 

Ethan is pretty sure he’s still going to kill his team. 

But at least it will be in his home country.

___

Seven and a half weeks of brutal debriefing and dealing with annoying bureaucrats later Hunt finally has a chance to meet up with his team.

Oddly enough, somewhere between Russia and India, they had forged a team that survived everything the mission that went to hell threw at them. Even when everything else failed. 

Which is why he leaves the phones for the three of them. 

If Brandt needs a bit of convincing, well, Ethan can believe it’s the sight of his wife that finally tips the scales. 

But Benji is waiting around the corner.

And neither of them are going anywhere.


End file.
